Stop pier fishers playing with white sharks: Editorial

Sure, anglers can legally hook up with a white shark off the Manhattan Beach pier. Technically. Barely.

Here’s what the California Department of Fish and Wildlife regulations say under the “Sharks (state-managed)” section: “Open all year, except that white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) may not be taken or possessed at any time.”

So the loophole in the rules that the clownish, capricious and ultimately cruel fishers who famously toyed with a great white Saturday took advantage of is that they didn’t land the creature.

They were operating under a kind of catch-and-release exemption. Except that a white shark is not a rainbow trout. Except they knew what they had on the line and declined to make the wise decision to cut it. Except that considering the reported large size of their monofilament they were not exactly going after perch. Except that in making all these exceptions for themselves they quite clearly endangered the dozens of swimmers, surfers and paddle boarders in the water all around them on a hot holiday weekend.

And still they played their fish. For about 45 minutes. With people all around the flailing creature in the water.

The 7-foot juvenile did not present a danger to swimmers in its normal, unhooked stage. The area around the pier and all through Santa Monica Bay is known as a shark pup incubation zone. Yes, adult great whites, an aggressive species, are a real danger to swimmers and surfers. Increasingly so? That is not at all clear. What is increasing is the number of people in California who go into the ocean for recreation. But the juveniles are not ordinarily a danger at all. Their “baby” teeth won’t let them be — they break off too easily before the big, adult teeth grow in.

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But a hooked juvenile shark is a different kettle of fish, as it were. The widely distributed video of the shark in question shows it thrashing about, clearly a danger to all in its path. The guys who had it on the line were yelling down at swimmers below the pier, telling them to get out of the water because a shark was down there.

There are always sharks down there. That was not the issue. They were the ones creating the danger to swimmers, not the juvenile sharks who grow up there. They are the ones responsible for the big bite to the chest eventually suffered by open-water ocean swimmer Steven Robles when the shark ran into him while still on the line. If they had simply cut that line, letting the shark go, there would not have been a problem. Their claim they were trying to lead the shark away from swimmers is a red herring. The shark, released, would not have presented the danger they caused.

For decades, especially after “Jaws,” humans have been especially scared of white sharks. But in California, until this spring, there was so much concern about their possibly declining numbers that they were almost declared either threatened or endangered as a species until Fish and Wildlife Director Charlton Bonham authored a memo saying he was concerned that new studies show a stable population and that further research is needed.

After Saturday’s troubling incident, which could have ended in Robles’ death, it’s clear there needs to be a new fishing regulation for Southern California piers: Anglers who hook up a white shark of any size must cut their line immediately. No playing the fish, no giggling for the video camera, no endangering swimmers and surfers.